Google Algorithm Glossary

With the number of Google algorithms and ranking factors out there it is easy to get mixed up between your Pandas and Penguins. Below you will find all known Google algorithms with the main need-to-know facts on each one. The information below will give you a good start at understanding the basics. Please note, there will definitely be more algorithms Google will be making use of, these are only the confirmed ones.

Hummingbird

Top Facts

This update was a large rewrite of the Google search engine. The best way to explain Hummingbird is by thinking of it as the main algorithm, whilst all others are addons that improve search results further.

With this update, came support for "Conversational search"

It has been reported after this update Google can now semantically understand relationships between words and entities much better.

Penguin

Top Facts

This algorithm was Google's response to site owners trying to game the PageRank algorithm by building large quantities of unnatural and spammy links.

Along with unnatural links, Penguin aims to penalise sites with a large amount of links from low quality directories, article directories as well as links with repeated use of the same exact-match anchor text.

Page Layout

Top Facts

The Page Layout update was created in an effort to return more high-quality pages in search results based upon user experience testing by Google. This algorithmic change meant Google started to take into consideration the layout of a page when determining where it should rank.

It targeted sites that either had very little content above-the-fold, or content that is being pushed down the page due to lots of ads high up on the page.